was a Japanese photographer with

United Press International United Press International (UPI) is an American international news agency whose newswires, photo, news film, and audio services provided news material to thousands of newspapers, magazines, radio and television stations for most of the 20th ...

who received the 1966

Pulitzer Prize for Photography The Pulitzer Prize for Photography was one of the American Pulitzer Prizes annually awarded for journalism. It was inaugurated in 1942 and replaced by two photojournalism prizes in 1968: the Pulitzer Prize for Feature Photography and "Pulitzer Pri ...

for his combat photography of the

Vietnam War The Vietnam War (also known by #Names, other names) was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vie ...

during 1965. Two of these photographs were selected as " World Press Photos of the Year" in 1965 and 1966. The 1965 photograph shows a Vietnamese mother and children wading across a river to escape a US bombing. The famous 1966 photograph shows U.S soldiers of the 1st Infantry division dragging a dead

Viet Cong , , war = the Vietnam War , image = FNL Flag.svg , caption = The flag of the Viet Cong, adopted in 1960, is a variation on the flag of North Vietnam. Sometimes the lower stripe was green. , active ...

fighter to a burial site behind their M113 armored personnel carrier, after he was killed in a fierce night attack by several Viet Cong battalions against Australian forces during the

Battle of Long Tan The Battle of Long Tan (18 August 1966) took place in a rubber plantation near Long Tân, in Phước Tuy Province, South Vietnam, during the Vietnam War. The action was fought between Viet Cong (VC) and People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN) units ...

on 18 August 1966. He also documented the Battle of Hue in 1968, for example capturing an image of Lance Corporal Don Hammons immediately after being wounded by enemy fire; he died minutes later. On October 28, 1970, Sawada and Frank Frosch, UPI

Phnom Penh Phnom Penh (; km, ភ្នំពេញ, ) is the capital and most populous city of Cambodia. It has been the national capital since the French protectorate of Cambodia and has grown to become the nation's primate city and its economic, indus ...

branch chief, were ambushed by unknown assailants and assassinated while returning to Phnom Penh by car from a news-gathering outing to Takéo Province. The bodies of the two men were found abandoned in a rice paddy near the road, riddled with bullet holes. No blood or bullet holes were found in their car, suggesting that they had been dragged from their vehicle and killed execution-style. There was no chance they had been mistaken for soldiers since they were driving in a civilian car and were wearing brightly colored civilian clothing.

Notes

1936 births 1970 deaths Assassinated Japanese journalists Japanese photojournalists Male murder victims People from Aomori (city) Pulitzer Prize for Photography winners Japan–South Vietnam relations War photographers killed while covering the Vietnam War {{Japan-photographer-stub